A BBC program probing anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has sparked a furious response from the party, which denounced the report and its producer, who directed an earlier program smearing party leader Jeremy Corbyn, as biased.

An episode of BBC Panorama entitled 'Is Labour Anti-Semitic?' purported to get to the bottom of what the BBC has melodramatically described as “the anti-Semitism crisis gripping Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party.” Based largely on information provided by eight former party members, the show has provoked a wave of indignation from Labour, which accused the BBC of violating its own “obligations of fairness, balance and political impartiality.”

This is not a fair or balanced investigation, it is an authored polemic, with no political balance of interviewees, quotes invented and emails edited to change meaning. It is an overtly one-sided intervention in political controversy by the BBC. #Panorama

The Party slammed the BBC’s choice of producer, John Ware, as “unsuitable,” noting that Ware's “record of public political hostility to Jeremy Corbyn and his leadership of the Labour Party, as well as a series of controversial articles and programs on the Muslim community, means he cannot be regarded as fair or even-handed on British politics.” A 2015 Panorama episode Ware produced on Corbyn made false claims and was widely denounced as a “hatchet job,” while a 2005 program Ware produced about British Muslims was slammed as "McCarthyite" and "disgusting" – the latter by a former Panorama journalist.